


Buckle, Knuckle, Kneel

by toffeecape



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angels, Blasphemy, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Church Sex, Domestic Violence, Gun Violence, Hand Jobs, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lucid Dreaming, M/M, Masturbation, Medical Procedures, Oral Sex, Pining, Possession, Post-Canon, Public Display of Affection, Public Sex, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Semi-Public Sex, Shaving, Shower Sex, Trauma, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-10-31 18:29:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17854862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toffeecape/pseuds/toffeecape
Summary: Tomas says, “I don’t want to lose him.”“Then bring him back.”





	1. Late In The Heavens That Are Already Bought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marcus comes back, and by the time Tomas starts to wonder if it might have been better if he hadn't, it’s too late.

Bennett asks a question. “Didn't quite catch that,” says Marcus. “Say again?”

“I said, how many languages do you speak?”

“I dunno, Bennett, what does it matter? It's just a knack.”

“Is one of them Beeke? There are less than a thousand speakers left in the world, and less than a dozen outside the Congo - one country I know you've never visited.”

Marcus looks at Bennett quizzically. “Bit unlikely then, innit?”

“We’re speaking it right now, Marcus.”

Marcus stills. “Shut it.” But when he thinks about it, what he _means_ is ‘shut it’ but what comes out of his mouth is something else entirely. He glances over at Tomas, who looks pale and unhappy and like he has absolutely no idea what Marcus and Bennett are saying. He has to concentrate to say in English, “What is this?”

Bennett slides a photograph across his desk. “Will you read that for me?”

Marcus barely glances at it. “Some poor sod got cheated by a wanker filling copper ingots with clay. What’s that got to do with anything? Answer the question: what is this?”

“The cuneiform tablet in that photograph is nearly 4000 years old.” Bennett stares at Marcus, tilting his head like an owl. “You’re exempt from the Curse of Babel,” he says softly.

Marcus grimaces uneasily. “That’s a demonic trait.” He goes to take Mother Bernadette’s rosary out of his pocket, then registers its weight hanging around his neck - along with what he recognizes as Tomas’ wooden one. “When did I put these on?”  

“Ten minutes ago,” says Tomas. “You don’t remember?”

“No. I don’t remember walking in here, either, or why we came.”

“We came because at the end of our last exorcism you were speaking in two voices at once.” Tomas has a white-knuckled grip on his trousers. “And you denied it when I asked you about it.”

A pit opens up in Marcus’ stomach. “I don’t remember that either. Vivian, right?” Tomas nods tightly. Marcus remembers the exorcism: a good one, like the old days, God's grace flowing through him becoming form becoming word becoming power. But he doesn't remember anything like what Tomas is describing, nor does he remember Tomas asking him about it.

He takes the rosaries in his hand. “These don’t hurt, though.” He looks at the half-empty glass of water on his side of Bennett’'s desk. “Holy?”

“I don’t let _anyone_ enter my space anymore without pouring them a glass and watching them drink some. And you’re well past the time and dosage limits for a reaction.”

“Speaking in tongues, losing time, but not reacting to holy items.” Feeling smaller than he has in a long time, Marcus asks, “What's happening to me?”

Tomas leans out of his chair to squeeze his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out. Together.”

* * *

Marcus comes back, and it's a miracle. Marcus comes back, and it's the answer to so many of Tomas’ prayers.

He intercepts Tomas and Mouse on the way to their meet with Bennett. The meet was arranged in utmost secrecy; there's no way he could have found out about it. _Impossible knowledge,_ and Tomas’ blood freezes in his veins until Marcus kisses his iron rosary and keeps down a swig of holy water and says impatiently, “Now will you _listen_ to me? God told me- oof!” as Tomas crashes into him and hugs him so hard Marcus has to pound on his back to breathe but then hugs him back just as tight.

“Bennett's possessed,” he says when Tomas releases him, “maybe integrated. He was going to- I saw-” he reaches for Tomas’ face with one trembling hand, then wavers, white-faced. “It doesn't matter. I was led to you in time.” He's as manic as Tomas has ever seen him and then some, burning on a clean flame of adrenaline. Tomas thinks that Bennett may actually _be_ integrated, but that Marcus drives the demon off anyway with sheer zeal.

And maybe more than zeal. Tomas doesn't know exactly what that more might be yet, but something is consuming Marcus from the inside. He barely eats, rapidly dropping the trace of healthy flesh he'd gained during his months away. He sleeps where he drops, and always wakes with a start, as if from a nightmare. It seems like every time Tomas turns around Marcus is either staring at him in poorly-veiled disquiet, or off alone in some corner praying with desperate fervor.

He’s different when they exorcise, too. Tomas had thought his conviction and authority were awe-inspiring when Marcus said he felt like an empty pitcher; now he seems more like a firehose with the coupling locked open, full-blast. The demons can't get a word in edgewise, and sometimes they break at the touch of Marcus’ hand on the forehead of the possessed, as if it burns them.

“This is what he was like twenty years ago,” says Mouse. She says it fondly but fades from their company as quietly as her nickname, leaving on other business for longer and longer until she’s gone indefinitely, checking in only by phone.

And then they exorcise Vivian Sojka. For the final hour of the battle with that demon, every time Marcus opens his mouth there are two voices speaking: his own, and one that is blatantly not his own. The demon recoils like the very sound is physically painful to it, and - by demonic standards - flees with its tail between its legs.

When Vivian’s grateful family sends them on their way, Marcus bounds out of the house, punching the air. _“That's_ how it should be!” he crows. He turns back to Tomas. “What are you staring at?”

Tomas thinks he could probably have accepted the second voice, _maybe_ even Marcus not being aware of it; Marcus accepts a great deal of strange behavior from Tomas, after all. But when he tries to bring it up again that evening, and Marcus doesn't even remember the previous conversation, Tomas panics and brings him to Bennett.

Marcus comes back, and by the time Tomas starts to wonder if it might have been better if he hadn't, it’s too late.

* * *

“Rome wasn't built in a day, but it sure seems like Bennett got this compound up and running in one,” Marcus remarks later, in the room they've been given to stay in. Tomas would have thought they'd get two monkish cells, but apparently Bennett wants eyes on Marcus enough to give them a single room with a comparatively generous double bed instead.

“There was a cult,” Tomas says absently. “The leader predicted the world would end before he died, and then he died. Many of his followers still worship him, but in their own homes now. Or so I've been told.” Bennett played shell games for years to support the Vatican's exorcists, both official and irregular; he was able to buy the compound for what was, to him, a song. Many of his former associates who avoided the Vatican's clutches are already starting to treat it as a new hub of operations. There are enough monks and nuns here to pray the Hours; it creates a bizarre atmosphere juxtaposed with the concrete walls and chain-link outer fence, for all that they're trying to coax ivy to grow on both.

“Neat trick with the lights behind frosted glass. You'd never guess you were underground.” Marcus’ tone is light, but his shoulders are hunched and he's resolutely turned away from Tomas, running his fingers over the glowing pane.

“Marcus,” Tomas pleads, “talk to me. You helped me when the visions became too much. Please, let me help you with this.”

Marcus’ shoulders hunch higher, and he says, barely audible, “What did it sound like?”

“The other voice?” Tomas thinks. “Hard to describe. _Not_ demonic. Not human either.” Tomas had been reminded of windchimes and distant thunder, though it sounded like neither. “It was just saying the words along with you.” And in so doing, it shook the room harder than the demon.

“I remember the moment we freed Vivian, though. Clear as anything, and just you and me with her.” Marcus’ fingers twitch. “Whatever this thing is, it's hiding itself from me. Messing with my head. That is _not on.”_

Tomas can't help himself, and seizes Marcus’ shoulder again. “We will catch it, and make it answer our questions, and then we will make it leave. God is with us.”

Marcus turns, and his eyes are wild. “Don't let it hurt you,” he says, “promise me.”

“Marcus, I can handle myself. You know this; you taught me.” Tomas palms the back of Marcus’ neck, like Marcus does for him sometimes. “There's something else, isn't there? Something's been not right with you since long before this. Ever since you came back.”

Marcus closes his eyes and swallows, taking several deep breaths through his nose. “You should know. If I get compromised even further, you’re going to need to know,” he says, mostly to himself. He opens his eyes. Marcus often looks haunted, but right now he looks like something is actively _haunting_ him. “God spoke to me. Sent me back to you. I've told you that much.”

Tomas nods.

“He showed me dangers. Bennett. A bunch of cryptic nonsense that probably won’t make sense until it’s too late, or as good as.”

Tomas grimaces; he knows all about that category of vision information.

“And I saw - I saw you die, Tomas.”

Tomas swallows. He figured it was something like that, but it's still chilling to hear. “How?”

“Or get possessed,” Marcus adds quickly, “it's all too bloody vague and symbolic, I can't make heads nor tails of it, and I'm so tired.” His voice cracks. “I'm so tired, Tomas, trying to watch for it and stay open to God so He can act when the time comes.”

“Why would it need to be God who-” but Tomas is cut off by sirens.

* * *

The problem with having a fixed base of operations, Marcus thinks grimly, is it also gives your enemies a place to come find you. He races to the perimeter yards beyond the concrete walls, acutely conscious of his handgun heavy in its holster under his jacket and Tomas hot on his heels.

_This could be it._

A truck has driven through the chain-link perimeter fence. Half a dozen figures are boiling out of it, peeling back the fence without touching it. It's an impressive display - until you realize they needed the truck to break the wire before they could bend it. No Pazuzus in _this_ motley little raiding party.

“Remember, don't kill them unless you must!” shouts Bennett. “Our goal is first to capture, interrogate, and exorcise!” There is discontented muttering from the gathered defenders - irregulars all, at this stage in the war - but several people holster their firearms in favor of tasers or other, more sawed-off looking firearms, presumably loaded with consecrated rock salt.

“That said, do not under any circumstances allow them to escape!” Scattered cheering and grim nods, and then the demons are in range.

Exorcists specialise in spiritual warfare; their corporeal skillsets have more in common with hospital orderlies and psychiatric nurses than soldiers. Ever since Chicago there’s been more of a need to disable first, secure later, but even with three exorcists for every demon it's a bad situation.

And then two more demons jump out of the truckbed and lob Molotov cocktails into the melee.

Marcus looks up from hogtying the second demon he and Tomas took down together, and realizes he's lost track of Tomas. He thinks he hears him scream, and dashes toward the sound.

It looks like he'd been rolling a restrained demon who caught fire when it bit him. He's now forcing his wrist further into its mouth to prise its jaw open. Good man; pulling away is how you lose chunks of muscle and nerve and tendon. Just as Tomas gets free, a nearby monk finishes drawing a cross on a demon's forehead with chrism; it howls and flails, knocking the bottle of holy oil away in a high arc that ends in a patch of fire that rushes back along the newly-splattered path.

“Tomas!”

Tomas rises to his feet and glances back at Marcus, blood dripping down his hands, cut off by a curving wall of flame, two demons advancing on him from the other side. It's _exactly_ the image from Marcus’ vision, not the least bit symbolic after all.

_This is it._

Marcus’ heart pounds once, twice, and then he reaches for the fissure inside himself that opened when he was twelve years old, the presence he’s been drawing nearer and nearer to since being sent back to Tomas. Now he heaves the crack wide open. _Now, now, I need You NOW,_ he prays, as forcefully as he ever has in his life. _This is what You put me here to do, now give me what I need to DO it, give me everything You've got, GIVE ME ALL OF IT-_

* * *

Tomas hears the two demons behind him just in time to roll away from them. His roll is broken by slamming into what feels like a wall, but when he looks around there's nothing.

And then something pulls his arms outstretched. And keeps pulling, and lifts and turns him to face the demons, who are staring at him intently, shaking with concentration, sweat standing out on their brows. They may not be as casually powerful as Angela Rance was, but they're getting the job done. Tomas’ shoulders start to pop and crunch, like the cracking of two enormous knuckles. The pain is so incredible he can't even scream, just wheeze, his eyes bulging and watering.

And then a figure - blurry through the tears standing in Tomas’ eyes - walks straight through the fire behind Tomas, lays hands on the crowns of the demons’ heads, and shouts as their eye sockets erupt in jets of blue-white flame. The deadly pressure on Tomas’ arms disappears, and he crumples to the ground much like the demons’ corpses do, then rolls onto his back as he gasps through the huge wave of adrenaline and aborted terror.

When he manages to look up at his rescuer, at first he just feels relief. “Marcus.”

But Marcus doesn't answer back, and even upside-down Tomas can see that there's something wrong with the way he's standing. Gingerly he rolls back up into a crouch, then a stand. “Marcus?”

His posture is all wrong; there's always a looseness to Marcus, a subtle jangling roll to his shoulders and hips, like the fluid shifting of a big cat on the prowl. Now he's standing as stiffly upright as a carved wooden doll, peering at his hands like he's never seen them before. A thumping sense of alarm begins to fill Tomas. “Marcus?”

He lifts his gaze to Tomas, and Tomas only half-stifles a scream.

He - it - a thing that is not Marcus where Marcus should be, and for that alone Tomas despises it immediately and completely -

\- where Marcus’ piercing blue eyes should be there is nothing, no sclera, no iris or pupil, just two windows into the starry void of space. It looks at Tomas and speaks, in a voice that Tomas has heard once before (thunder and windchimes), but this time it speaks alone.

It says, “Oh, this is not good.”

* * *

It claims to be an angel. It asks to be called Malachi.

Bennett snorts, “That isn't even a name. It just means ‘my messenger’.”

“Yes,” the thing says, sitting peaceably in the center of a circle of holy ash, manacled and shackled, chains lying slack around it. It's dripping with holy water and chrism, none of which had any effect beyond making Marcus’ body shiver with cold. Tomas catches himself wondering if he should bring the thing possessing Marcus a blanket and a hot drink, and wants to vomit with rage.

“When did you first make contact with Marcus Keane?” Tomas demands.

“I didn’t.”

“Explain.”

“We’ve never spoken, only worked in parallel.”

“Well, when did you start to do that?”

It opens its mouth - _Marcus’_ mouth, Tomas reminds himself furiously - and keeps it open, unmoving, as the sound of Marcus’ voice roars out of it like a recording from a speaker: “Twelve years old, staring down one of your bastard brothers! And the world cracked in half,” his voice breaks to a sob, “and I saw _God_ on the other side.”

Malachi says, “I did the cracking.”

“If that's true, why wait over forty years to possess him?” asks Bennett.

“I'm not.” It's infuriating, how willingly it answers their questions, and how uselessly brief its answers are, requiring them to prod for every scrap of information.

“What do you _want?”_ Tomas spits, one of the few questions almost every demon he's ever met is all too eager to answer.

“For Marcus to release me so I can go home.” Its eyes - eye-voids, whatever - don't move, and Marcus’ stolen face is unnaturally still, but it must register Tomas and Bennett's dumbfounded stares because for once it elaborates without prompting. “I don't think he knows he's doing it. He just trapped me here and disappeared.”

Tomas’ mouth goes dry. “When you say ‘disappeared’-”

“Inside himself.” It tilts Marcus’ head slightly, and it sounds like it’s trying to soften its impossible voice when it adds, “Not gone.”

Tomas hugs his sides and swallows hard against the lump in his throat. He doesn’t want to stop hating this thing. The hate keeps his terrible fear for Marcus at bay. “We’ll get him to come out again.”

“I hope you do.”

* * *

Malachi can’t be exorcised like a demon.

It doesn’t react to any of the prayers in the Rituale Romanum, beyond patiently reciting it with them, and correcting their pronunciation when they try it in Latin. Scripture likewise has no effect beyond the occasional moue of distaste, like it wants to quibble over the provenance of certain passages but intuits that this is not the time.

Hours later, it states the obvious. “This isn’t working. I’m not one of the Fallen. Marcus’ body is growing tired and it could get sick if it stays in these wet clothes much longer.” It pries the manacles and shackles off Marcus’ wrists and ankles as easily as peeling a banana, and walks over the line of holy ash. “Is there a place where I can rest?”

“Your quarters with Tomas, I suppose,” Bennett says from behind both his hands, in which he is resting his face in dismay at this casual flouting of their security measures.

Tomas’ initial fury and terror have burnt themselves out. Now he just feels exhausted, and sick with worry for his friend. “Come on. This way.”

Malachi moves slowly through a shower in a stall in the communal bathroom, like - well, like someone who’s seen it done but never done it themself. It thanks Tomas when he hands it a towel and dry clothes after, and emerges with the tshirt on backwards. “This doesn’t feel right.” It flutters its fingers at its neck ( _Marcus’_ fingers, _Marcus’_ neck), where the band is digging in.

Tomas sighs and pulls the band out far enough for it to see. “This is the laundry tag. You put it at the back of your neck.”

“Oh.” It pulls Marcus’ arms in and twists the shirt around. “That’s better.” It glances down in alarm at a growl from Marcus’ stomach. “I’m going to have to eat, aren’t I?” Tomas is learning to parse emotions in its inhuman voice; right now it sounds resigned.

Despite himself, he feels a flicker of sympathy. Malachi has inarguably had A Day. “The kitchen isn’t far. I’ll make you something.”

At first he was thinking sandwich, but then he considers the number of intense flavors in even a simple one and whether he would appreciate that as his first meal ever, and makes a pot of oatmeal instead. He makes it the way he does for Marcus when he gets the chance, stirring in as much butter and sugar as he can get away with until every bite is a precious calorie-bomb.  

Malachi eats four huge bowls. “This is going to be a problem,” it says quietly, running a finger around the inside of the pot.

“Our situation isn’t good, but we’re a long way from running out of food.”

“I mean that it will strain Marcus’ body for me to be in it for long.”

“Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen then.” As they walk back, he says, “Marcus was experiencing gaps in his memory for a few days before this. Was that you?”

“Yes. He was never meant to be aware of me, but as he took more it became difficult to hide myself.”

“What do you mean, ‘took more’? More what?”

“I suppose you could call it grace? I’ve always let him decide how much he needed, but now he's swallowed me whole.”

“Our power comes from God,” Tomas says firmly.

“So do I.”

Tomas stews while he walks Malachi through brushing Marcus' teeth, and laying down to sleep. It feels enough like sharing a bed with Marcus - something that wasn’t uncommon, out of necessity or for pure animal comfort on bad nights, but still happened too rarely for Tomas’ secret liking - that Tomas has to sniff back sudden tears.

“What is it?”

“You don't even smell like him,” he mutters.

Malachi looks at him for a long moment. “Should I find somewhere else to sleep?”

“No. No, that would be worse.” Apropos of nothing, he blurts out, “Why did you come to him in the first place?” Tomas means at least four things at once by the question.

Malachi fixes its eyes, such as they are, on his. The stars within them swirl. “A child slave, who has known mainly cruelty and lack, is locked in a room with one of the Fallen, and his first action is to save not himself, but the Fallen one’s victim. It was an act of pure _agape_. We sing about it often.”

Tomas closes his eyes as the tears escape. “I miss him.”

“Me too.”

Tomas rolls away and draws up his knees to sleep. He’s no good to Marcus if he’s dead on his feet. The last thing he’s aware of before he drops off is a slight increase in warmth around him, like an extra blanket has been added to the bed, and a brush against his face of something soft, like feathers.

* * *

“You’re not allowed to discuss theology alone with Sister Helen anymore,” Tomas tells Malachi two days later, dabbing at Marcus’ split lip.

“ _She_ punched _me_.” The resonance of Malachi’s voice is altered by the fact that it’s pinching Marcus’ nostrils shut.

“In _Marcus’_ face, so just accept that you are a poor judge of human emotional cues and Sister Helen is extra volatile. Tell her I forbade you to debate with her if you want.”

Marcus’ eyebrows scowl at him over Malachi’s celestial eyes. It’s a surreal moment.

“You should be able to take the pressure off now. Try it and see.” Malachi leans over the sink and cautiously stops pinching - only to resume when doing so releases a fresh gout of blood.

Tomas frowns. “She didn’t hit you _that_ hard. The bleeding should at least be slowing by now.”

Malachi spits an alarming mouthful of blood into the sink. “Infirmary?” it gurgles.

The next day Mouse returns, and in the course of confronting Malachi (a ‘get out of my friend’/‘I wish I could’ exchange Tomas has to admit it’s handling repeated renditions of better than he would) she grabs it by the wrist, only to recoil when it gasps in pain. A section of Marcus’ skin has slipped free as easily as peeling a boiled peach. Malachi is silent as Tomas wraps both of Marcus’ arms in bandages like a mummy, but he’s had three days to learn its facial expressions and he knows it’s deeply troubled.

Tomas is troubled too. On top of everything else, Marcus’ body - always nearly too thin - is now _much_ too thin, as if Malachi is burning through his reserves despite eating what should be a large meal for four people, six times a day.

He loses track of Malachi the following night, and finds it in the inner courtyard, looking up at the stars. “Where are you?” it’s saying to itself, and, “Why won’t you let me go?” Actually, maybe it’s talking to Marcus.

“Malachi?”

It turns to look at Tomas, and he’s shocked to see tears glistening on Marcus’ cheeks. “I don’t want to be here. I very much don’t want to be killing Marcus before his time.” It waves a bandaged hand at Marcus’ sternum. “It hurts, right here.”

Tomas knows about feeling homesick, and heartsick. The last of his resentment loses its grip on him and he very carefully hugs the miserable angel standing where his friend - his home - his heart - should be and is not. Just as carefully, it hugs him back.

Said angel faints halfway back to their quarters. Tomas catches Marcus’ body as it falls, picks it up - terrifyingly light - and changes course for yet another trip to the infirmary.

* * *

“Why haven’t you tried exorcising him your way?” Mouse asks. In the infirmary bed, Malachi opens its eyes and looks at her, interest overtaking its exhaustion.

“Marcus isn’t possessed,” Tomas says.

“But what is a possessed person but a human and a spirit occupying the same space?” Mouse points out. “Have you ever entered the mind of anyone who _wasn’t_ possessed?”

“No…”

“Then maybe the link between the person and the spirit is your way in, and even if the link between Marcus and- Malachi-” she’s coming around to the angel slower than Tomas did, “-is different, maybe it’s close enough for you to get in anyway.”

“It’s worth a try, Tomas.”

Tomas takes a deep breath and lets it out. “I need an hour to prepare. Can you explain to Sister Margaret what to expect, and ask if there are any treatments due soon that she can give before we start?”

Mouse nods. “It’ll help keep us on her good side that we’re not trying to move her patient.”

Tomas goes looking for Bennett, and asks him to take his confession. Half an hour later he emerges from Bennett’s office, red-eyed but shriven, and having received both communion and a cross of fragrant chrism on his forehead. He goes to the bathroom, collects his rosary and stole, and returns to the infirmary with three minutes to spare.

Malachi is reclining in the bed. Its IV bag has been changed, and it’s slurping grimly on a protein shake. Tomas pulls up a chair at the bedside, kisses his stole and dons it. His rosary is already coiled around his wrist.

It finishes the shake and tosses the carton into the little trash can nearby. Two other cartons are in there already. "If this doesn’t work, Tomas, know that you are the best friend Marcus ever had, and that I consider you a friend as well.”

Tomas says, “I don’t want to lose him.”

“Then bring him back.”

Mouse pulls the curtain closed around the bed. Tomas crosses himself, lays his hand on Marcus’ forehead, and closes his eyes.

Mouse says, “Let us begin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: “You know,” Tomas says faintly, “most people’s minds are more like a house."
> 
> * * *
> 
>  
> 
>   1. This is a completed work! The chapters are a bit longer and heavier than my last fic, so I'll be editing and posting at a slower pace that fits around my work schedule. 
>   2. Oh my GOD, you guys. "I'm just gonna give the angel idea a brief treatment," I said. "Sweep the plot bunny off the stage so I can think about other ideas," I said. *screams and cries and dies*
>   3. Here is my now-standard invitation to the open [TE Discord](https://discordapp.com/invite/twkzTdU), where I do a great deal more screaming and crying and dying, and also get peer-pressured by filthy enablers to write more and bigger and weirder. Love you guys. 
>   4. Obviously Bennett has a framed copy of [the world's oldest known written complaint.](https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?assetId=141562001&objectId=277770&partId=1#more-views) The bit about the clay is known from _other_ complaints about _the same guy_ , all recovered from what was probably _his house_. 
> 



	2. Sleeps A Red Planet In A Galaxy Of Lion's Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “God forgives you. God loves you. _I_ love you. Come home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for the canon backstory of one (1) Marcus Keane. Please heed the tags.

“You know,” Tomas says faintly, “most people’s minds are more like a house.” He stares at the galaxy in front of him. “Is it like this because of you, Malachi?”

The clockwork hurricane beside him shrieks, like a recording Tomas once heard of storms on a gas giant. Somehow the shrieking resolves into language in his awareness.

No. Most minds you enter are under attack, and you instinctively go to that part. Humans are all like this from a distance. 

“How am I going to find Marcus hiding in all of that?”

Don’t search with your eyes. Search with your heart. 

Tomas chuckles. “That’s the first trite thing I’ve heard you say, angel.”

And it will be the last; I’m waiting back here until you find him. He doesn’t know me, and I know I look - alarming. 

“...You’re not wrong.”

Go with God, Tomas. Here, I’ll give you a push. Something _shoves_ Tomas from behind, and he is sent flying toward the galaxy at incredible speed, flailing his limbs and screaming at the top of his lungs.

He stops screaming when he starts hearing snatches of music. He realizes he knows many of the songs that drift by; they appear on the collection of dilapidated cassettes Marcus listens to over and over on his dilapidated tape deck, the only two possessions he holds onto that don’t tie directly into his work. (He has sketchbooks, but when one fills up he gifts or sells the best drawings and leaves the rest of the book behind.)

He doesn’t need to find Marcus. Everything here is Marcus. He needs to find the reason - or reasons - Marcus felt the need to swallow an angel whole.

“What did you say, the day of the raid?” he says aloud. “Something in your vision frightened you, and you said you were watching for it and trying to stay open to God so He could act when the time came.”

Which was such odd phrasing Tomas remembers it making his hair stand on end. God acts _through_ them, by providing guidance and support (some of it, it turns out, delivered by angels), but He doesn't act _for_ them _._

“Why would you think that, Marcus? Why would you give up the agency God made you with?” He asks the question and feels a pull, a rushing past worlds.

And what worlds! He glimpses them only in passing, but he sees: music that fizzes and sparks in Marcus’ blood, sightings of plants and birds that through Marcus’ eyes pierce Tomas with their beauty until he wants to weep, bright mornings after freeing a soul, - Tomas’ smile? The point is, Marcus’ mind is amazing and Tomas could easily get lost in it.

So perhaps it's for the best that he’s being pulled briskly toward a specific world. It's a sullen shade of red that makes Tomas feel uneasy just looking at it, but presumably it's where he can find the answers he needs, so he closes his eyes and falls, down, down, down…

* * *

He lands in a meadow, on the edge of a forest. It's a late summer day, syrupy golden sunlight bathing lush greenery that droops with heat and with being just past its prime for the year. It would be idyllic were it not for the house.

It's run-down, little more than a shack and poorly maintained, and looking at it makes Tomas’ head ring with silent screams that aren't his. The door is standing open. He walks up to it and looks inside, and covers his mouth.

A woman is crumpled in a ball in a pool of her own blood, her brains smeared all over her hands and the floor and her head. A bloody hammer lies nearby. Closer to the door, a man lies face-down in another pool of blood, this one coming from his neck. The rifle on the ground near him suggests he was shot in the throat. His arms are outstretched, hands curled into claws, like he died trying to throttle someone. There are great gouts of blood splashed all around the doorway, and a smeared puddle in front of the man with little footprints leading away.

The footprints are _so_ little. Tomas’ chest hurts.

He follows them into the forest. The bloodstains fade eventually, but the owner of the feet is not trying to hide his tracks. They disappear into a small cave. Tomas has to enter on his hands and knees. There's barely room for himself and the tiny figure balled up against the far wall.

“Marcus?”

He lifts his head from his knees and looks bleakly at Tomas. It's Tomas’ first sight of his brilliant blue eyes in days. “I could've run, Tomas. The door were right there.” His babyish voice is more heavily accented than it is as a man, more like the voices that demons taunt him with sometimes - presumably, the voices belonging to the dead people back at the house.

“I'm glad you didn't. He would have followed you and caught you.” Tomas shudders. The man on the floor had been _big,_ almost as tall as the adult Marcus and probably twice his weight, much of it muscle.

“I'm a killer. I'm just like him.” He sounds horribly flat - and hoarse. There's a ring of bruises on his neck.

“You aren't,” Tomas insists, “and even if you were you would be forgiven. Come here.” He spreads his hands, and after a moment's hesitation Marcus crawls into his lap.

Tomas has to hold back a whine of anguish. Marcus at seven feels like he weighs less than Luis did at age four, for all that he's a head taller, a tense little bundle of bones who’s about to be sent off to be alone for many, many years. Tomas squeezes him tightly.

“I absolve you, Marcus,” he whispers. “God forgives you. God loves you. _I_ love you. Come home.”

“There's more,” Marcus sniffles against his chest.

“Show me.”

* * *

“It's me own fault,” Marcus tells him conversationally, “moved too slow trying to climb out of reach, and someone beaned me with a brick. Prolly Ned, gettin’ his own back for the nettles down his trousers the other night. Wanker.” His right ankle is purple and twice the size of his left; both poke at least four inches below the cuffs of his pants. Without being told, Tomas is aware that he’s eleven years old.

The infirmary has half a dozen cots in it, each containing a miserable boy. One is vomiting almost continuously into a bucket. Another is lying on his stomach, long streaks of blood soaking through bandages all over his back. At least half of them are sobbing quietly, and one is sobbing loudly. There's not an adult in sight.

“Horrid place, innit?” Marcus murmurs. “All that hurting, and not a damned thing you can do.” He digs into his pocket and produces a small blade, like the kind found on cheap pencil sharpeners. He walks it like a coin over the backs of his fingers, with a ghastly flicker of his familiar mischievous grin. “Well, one damned thing.”

“Please don't,” Tomas says.

“It's a memory, Tomas, not a happening. You can't change it.” Marcus rolls away from the room to face the wall, leaning on his left elbow and rolling up the sleeve of his threadbare tshirt. With his delicate, steady artist's touch, he starts tracing a spiral over his left deltoid with the blade. Tomas has stared at the scar (spiral and spokes and stick-poke ink, thick as a scout badge of pain) many times on Marcus the man.

“It's a sin to damage yourself, but if I don't sleep I'll be daft in class tomorrow and get a thrashing far worse. So I'd be damaging meself more by _not_ doing it.”

“You should never have had to make that kind of choice.”

“Bloody tiresome, thinking about meself all the time,” Marcus agrees. He finishes the spiral with a flourish in the centre and a deep sigh, looking with satisfaction at the tiny droplets of blood welling up as regular as beads on a string. “That’s better.”  

“I wish I could take this from you.”

Marcus’ eyes flick up. “It's part of me. Why d’you think I have the nerve to help that poor sod a year from now, when I get thrown into another pit? It's ‘coz of feeling so useless in this one.”

“‘We glory in our sufferings, because we know our suffering produces perseverance’?”

Marcus snuggles down under the shabby blanket on his cot, still shielding his shoulder from the rest of the room as the blood dries to black scabs. “I'll hear that line in a couple of years, and like it for the rest of me life,” he yawns. “Rings true.”

Tomas strokes his hair. “You didn't deserve this. There is nothing you could do to deserve this.”

“If you say so,” Marcus mutters, deeply dubious.

“I do say so.” He remembers something Marcus once said to Harper. “You are clean. You are pure. You are a child of God, and there is nothing wrong with you.” He thumbs away the tears that track silently down Marcus’ smooth cheeks. “And you are loved.”

“Not for much longer,” Marcus says, and closes his eyes.

* * *

**God is jealous,** purrs the demon in a much younger Mouse, the scar on her cheek a fresh, inflamed wound, **and greedy.**

“Mouse,” Marcus says desperately.

 **But I'm not.** It spreads her legs and mock-moans, **Just let her love you, Father Marcus. My gift to you.**

“Oh, what have I done?” Marcus sobs as the demon laughs. “Forgive me.” And he _flees._

Tomas follows him out of the room, and watches him place a call on a landline. Then he goes outside to smoke with trembling hands.

“Five months, ten days,” he tells Tomas. “She holds the record - two records: the longest I worked at an exorcism, and the first demon I failed to cast out.” He takes a deep drag on his cigarette. “Because I was its way in.”

This Marcus is Tomas’ age, with his strawberry blond hair grown out in a veritable mane - ill-advised, because he doesn't take proper care of it. “I didn't know you smoked.”

“Gave it up when I took my vows. More or less.” He sighs out a long plume. “I still have one sometimes when a case goes bad.”

“I thought you said Mouse's was the first demon you failed to cast out.”

“Yeah, that _I_ failed. Cases go bad lots of ways. Dying of injuries after the demon leaves, family interrupts and the possessed die in hospital, a mob interrupts and murders them… things I can't control.” He smiles wryly. “I couldn't keep at this if I couldn't let go of _some_ things.” He stubs out his cigarette.

“Why are you showing me this, Marcus?”

His smile twists. “I abandoned my friend. Just like I’ll abandon you, twenty years later. Not worthy to stay.”

Tomas’ head hurts. Marcus is such a mess. It doesn’t take long for him to give up on untangling the knot and decide to just cut through it. “Come here,” he says again, and opens his arms, and Marcus goes into them.

He holds him for a long time, stroking his back, until Marcus’ arms creep around his waist. Tentatively at first, then clinging.

“Listen to me. Are you listening?” Marcus nods. “Mouse forgave you long ago.”

Marcus’ fingers twitch. “She’s so angry when I see her again.”

“She was hurt; she had a right to her anger. That does not mean you are not forgiven.”

“How do you _know?”_

“She told me.” Tomas realizes something. “I’ve spent more time with her as herself than you have.”

Marcus sniffs. “I do better the second time, with the company I leave my friend in,” he says wetly.

“And I also forgave you. I missed you every day, and I didn’t and don’t understand how you can think yourself unworthy,” though he is beginning to, holding this big, raggedy lion of a man and feeling the maimed boys contained within him, like Russian nesting dolls, “but all I ever wanted was for you to come back. And you did. Now come back again, with me.”

Marcus clears his throat. “I’m not done.”

* * *

Marcus hands Gabriel’s broken body to his mother and slinks away like he would rather be crawling on his belly; she watches him go like she thinks he should too. He collapses in the first alley he finds and sobs for a long time, and Tomas sits with him.

When the storm of weeping has passed, Marcus leans his head back against the wall and looks up at the night sky, starless with pollution. “I never know what went wrong. If-if he was integrated all along and toying with me, or if I misjudged his strength, or the demon’s strength, or my _own_ strength, in my great arrogance. I’m never going to know. Eighteen months in psychiatric care-”

“Of demons.”

“Of demons, yes, thank you Tomas - are enough to make me understand that much. Ten minutes in a room with you are enough to make me understand God isn’t done with me yet.”

“You’ve been driven past the edge of endurance so many times,” Tomas says, “and then had to pick yourself up and keep going.”

“What is it you say, later? _My life belongs to God. It has always been in His hands._ His hands aren’t exactly gentle.”

“No, but they are merciful. You are forgiven. You are loved. You don’t have to live in this pain forever.”

“I don’t. No more than the rest. This is all just to help you understand.”

Tomas is tired already, but it’s a pale shadow of the exhaustion in Marcus’ face, so he squares his shoulders and says, “Show me.”

* * *

Mrs. Graham steps into her daughter’s bedroom, clutching a bloody hammer, and the memory freezes like a video on pause.

Tomas looks at the hammer, the hammer with his blood on it. It screams silently in Marcus’ memory like the house at the edge of the forest. “You thought I was dead.”

“I wanted to kill her,” Marcus agrees. “Harper saved me by being there; if I hadn’t needed to protect her I might have tried.”

The memory starts moving again, Marcus throwing the crazy woman around the room and trying to reassure the terrified girl on the bed at the same time, which goes about as well as expected. Tomas reflects that Marcus is lucky he’s as big as he is, with old-man muscles like oak and iron; anyone else would have paid for such scattered attention with a lot more than a cut on the forearm. Finally he has Mrs. Graham pinned, and then Tomas watches himself stumble in, clutching the doorframe for balance and streaming blood from his head but alive, alive, _alive._ The memory freezes again on him, strangely lit in the adrenaline-soaked vision of Marcus’ memory. He almost seems to glow.

(Tomas remembers that he did not feel like he was glowing. He felt like his head hurt, so much he wanted to throw up from the pain, coupled with wanting to throw up at the horror of what he had almost done, the terrible depth of his mistake. Really, it’s a miracle he managed to hold on until Harper left in the ambulance and he was sick in the bushes outside the house.)

“I didn’t tell you, because you’d just had your bell rung and then later because you just finished admitting you still needed a mentor, but this day bothers me a lot.” Marcus glares at the twisted face of Mrs. Graham, still pinned. “Meeting the new heavyweight champion in the Worst Mother Olympics, that keeps me up quite a few nights all by itself.” He gets up - no one moves, the memory still frozen - and traces the shape of the memory-Tomas’ face without touching him. “Thinking I’d lost you was a kick in the gut as well; I wonder if I’ll dream about that hammer for as long as I did the first one.”

 _Not if I don’t get you out of here,_ Tomas thinks. He can’t let himself forget what’s at stake, what he’s here to do.

“And then. And then I _got you back._ That’s never happened before. It’s the only reason I don’t blame myself.”

“Blame yourself for what?”

“Not realizing sooner how much trouble I was in. I’ve never had someone to lose, not like this.” Marcus glances back at Tomas, and his face crumples in pain. “But I figure it out soon, don’t I? Just not soon enough for-”

* * *

“-Andy,” Marcus finishes.

This time Tomas is in his own place in the memory, kneeling at Andy’s side, gasping with remembered horror of his own: the death of Andy while they were still connected, the so-recent touch of the demon upon his soul, the feeling of being all but consumed, only saved at the last possible instant. As he did when it happened, he has to hang his head and force deep breaths for a long time while Mouse prays over and unties Andy’s body, then takes the gun from Marcus’ nerveless hand. She wipes the handle with her sleeve and folds Andy’s hand around it, then leads Marcus and Tomas out of the ruined little cabin. She moves in absolute silence, without so much as a rustle of grass, as she always does when she isn’t trying to be heard.

They trail behind her, and Tomas says, “Once she understood more about what I can do, Mouse slapped me for offering myself to the demon like that.”

It’s maybe the only thing he could say that would startle Marcus from his silent agony. _“What?”_

“She pointed out that its first act would have been to kill Andy anyway, and then you and her, and then it would have walked out into the world with all its powers plus my own.”

“God might have intervened.”

“You’re the one who told me God doesn’t come running every time we snap our fingers.”

Marcus scowls like he would have preferred to self-flagellate in this vein for a while longer. Tomas has faith in his ability to jump to another track of guilt, though, and Marcus doesn’t disappoint. “That’s beside the point.”

“The fact that it was the best of a small number of bad options is _beside the point?”_

“I didn’t do it because it was the right choice. I did it because I couldn’t lose you.” Marcus hunches his shoulders and kicks at the ground. “I’m all used up, Tomas. I can’t trust my own judgement. Every single part of me is compromised.”

“For having a friend?”

Marcus’ eyes snap. “More than a friend.”

Tomas stills. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I think I’ve proven that I do.”

“Fine. Fine! You want to know? I’ll show you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: 
> 
> Tomas opens his eyes to a dim, hot, humid motel room. Marcus is lying on one bed. There's light under the bathroom door and the sound of running water behind it. 
> 
> The water shuts off, and Tomas sees himself come out in just a towel slung around his hips.


	3. On The Surface Every Tendon And Intended Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tomas watches his dream-self's eyes flutter shut and feels a ringing inside, like the striking of some inner gong, and thinks, _Oh._

Tomas opens his eyes to a dim, hot, humid motel room. Marcus is lying on one bed. There's light under the bathroom door and the sound of running water behind it.

The water shuts off, and Tomas sees himself come out in just a towel slung around his hips. He opens the curtains, then the window. He's damp all over, beaded with moisture that evaporates only slowly in the muggy air.

(Tomas is sure that Marcus’ mind is exaggerating the definition of his muscles and the brightness of the moonlight reflecting off his wet skin.)

“Marcus?” The other Tomas calls very quietly. “Are you awake?” When he gets no answer, he hangs the towel over a chair back and wanders around naked as he gets ready for bed, letting himself air-dry. Marcus, very much _not_ asleep, watches him through slitted eyes.

Tomas remembers this night (and dies a little inside at the knowledge that Marcus saw him). He'd eventually felt dry enough to put on some boxers and a tshirt and go to sleep.

That's... not what he does this time.

With another glance at Marcus, Tomas lies down on the other bed, on top of the covers, still naked. Slowly, he drags a hand from his belly up to his nipples and rubs them. With his other hand he gropes his thigh, avoiding his cock as it thickens.

(Marcus’ imagination is _definitely_ being generous with Tomas’ endowments, he notes with a slight edge of hysteria.)

At length (pun definitely intended) he cups his balls and then squeezes his half-upright shaft. He lets out the quietest of moans, then freezes when Marcus rolls to face him, grumbling in his ‘sleep’. His erection doesn't go down, though; in fact it rapidly hardens the rest of the way, and eventually Tomas starts to move his hand again.

Marcus is watching again. Slowly, his hand starts to move under the sheets.

Tomas licks his palm and takes hold of his cock in earnest, long strokes up and down, still rubbing his nipples and now pinching them as well. “Oh,” he gasps aloud, “oh!” He rubs his neck, his cheek, his lips, then pinches his nipple again and whispers, “Marcus.”

In the other bed, Marcus’ eyes go wide.

Tomas starts to toss his head back and forth on the pillow and roll his hips, slowly humping the air as he writhes in self-inflicted pleasure. On one particularly showy twist he opens his eyes and looks right at Marcus looking at him, and - doesn't miss a beat.

He knew the whole time.

“Marcus,” he moans, and speeds up his rhythm until he comes, bowing off the bed until only his shoulders and heels are touching the mattress, squirting long white lines up his torso. Marcus shudders and comes too.

They keep looking at each other afterwards, their breathing loud in the room.

Standing in the darkness, the real Tomas says, “Oh.”

“That's nothing,” says Marcus.

* * *

Tomas doesn't remember this day, but only because there are so many days exactly like it: eating takeout side-by-side in the parked truck, arguing good-naturedly about something. Music, maybe, or football.

Even the way Marcus looks at Tomas is familiar, though from his vantage point - outside the two of them, but inside Marcus’ mind - the real Tomas sees how Marcus thinks the expression on his face must spell out his every thought and emotion, chief among them his enormous, melting fondness.

He reaches for Tomas’ face. “You've got a little, uh-” he brushes a crumb out of Tomas’ beard. His hand lingers after, rubbing his jaw with his thumb. Tomas looks at him - a naked, yearning look - and turns his face into his palm, and nuzzles it. He reels Marcus in by the hand, and halfway there Marcus starts moving on his own, closes the gap and kisses him. He cups Tomas’ face in his hands so tenderly, like he would a precious thing. Tomas watches his dream-self's eyes flutter shut and feels a ringing inside, like the striking of some inner gong, and thinks, _Oh._

Marcus moves down to Tomas’ neck, and Tomas tips his head back to give him access, shifting in his seat. Marcus notices and pulls his shirt out of his waistband, sliding one hand up under it and cupping Tomas through his pants with the other. Tomas arches his hips pleadingly, and Marcus opens his pants and tugs them down. They both shudder when Marcus takes hold of his cock. Marcus presses himself close as he slides down, kissing a path from his neck to his collarbone, rucking up Tomas’ shirt to continue on to his chest and down his abdomen as he crouches into the footwell.

He pauses there, looking up at Tomas, who strokes the side of his face, the back of his head, then gently urges him down. His mouth falls open (as does the real Tomas’) when Marcus starts to lick and suck him, tilting and bobbing his head.

Tomas can count on one hand the number of blowjobs he's gotten in his life, so he can't actually tell if Marcus knows what he's doing, but the amount of slurping and humming suggest that either way he's doing it with _enthusiasm._ The other Tomas - fantasy, this is a fantasy and that is a fantasy Tomas, and it is ridiculous to feel jealous of a figment of Marcus’ imagination - certainly seems to appreciate his efforts, groaning and thrusting slowly and stroking Marcus' hair. Abruptly he gasps and stills and taps Marcus’ shoulder, and Marcus pulls off in time for Tomas to come on his face.

Marcus looks at the real Tomas, spatters of come glistening on his cheeks and in his beard and moustache. “Now do you see?”

Slowly, Tomas says, “What else will you show me if I say no?”

Marcus narrows his eyes and grunts in exasperation, and-

* * *

“You know your way around a straight razor,” Marcus says from the doorway of the bathroom.

Tomas watches himself strop his razor on his belt, hanging on the towel rack. The air is still steamy from his shower. “When I started sprouting a full neckbeard almost overnight, Abuelita marched me to the same barbershop my grandfather used to visit and had them teach me.”

Marcus laughs. Tomas remembers this exchange, but this time Marcus doesn't leave him to it. Instead, he says, “Did you let them do it for you at all?”

“A few times, on special occasions. Why?”

“Care to see how I measure up?”

Tomas looks at Marcus in the mirror. “Okay.”

Marcus gets him lathered up and sitting on the counter, and starts on one cheek. He's confident in the way he pulls the skin taut, holding the razor lightly and letting the edge do most of the work. He tilts Tomas’ head up and does his neck on the same side, then turns him to start over on the other cheek. His face is intent, focused, like this is as important as their dangerous work.

He's probably standing closer to Tomas than is strictly necessary. Tomas has his legs spread to accommodate him.

“Have you done this for someone before?” The real Tomas was just wondering the same thing.

“Not like this. Mates with injured hands, in training. Up again, there's a good lad.”

(Surely holding still and moving as directed doesn’t merit quite such a warm tone, thinks the real Tomas.)

“You're good at it.”

Marcus shrugs and scrapes Tomas' neck clean on that side. “Always had a knack for most things with my hands. Shall I leave you some beard?”

“I've never tried having one before.”

“You ask me, it'd suit you.”

Tomas smiles faintly. “Alright, sure.” Marcus shapes the stubble on his mouth and chin into a cleaner, more intentional version of what Tomas has in reality right now.

 _“This_ feels like a hint,” the real Tomas jokes, partly because he means it and partly to distract himself from the look of watchful trust on his double’s face.

Marcus rolls his eyes at him and continues wiping the lingering traces of shaving cream off the other Tomas, who remains oblivious. He smoothes aftershave on with broad, slow strokes. Tomas follows the path of Marcus’ hands with the back of his own.

“That's closer than I can get,” he says, “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Marcus says sincerely. His eyes flick to the real Tomas, and-

* * *

Tomas remembers this sunny afternoon, beside this stream, under this tree. With nowhere to go and nothing to do for once, they picnicked on sandwiches, waded barefoot in the cool water, and fell asleep in the shade. In reality, they napped side-by-side. Here, they do it with Marcus’ head in Tomas’ lap.

“There you are,” says the other Tomas as Marcus wakes. “Sleep well?”

Marcus’ wordless rumble of complaint turns into one of pleasure as Tomas strokes his hair. “Mmm, worth the crick in my back to wake up like this,” he says, butting his head up into Tomas’ touch.

“That's no good. I'll have to help you work it out.” Tomas folds over until he can - awkwardly - reach Marcus’ mouth for a kiss. After a long minute like that he disentangles himself and rolls until he's on all fours over Marcus, kissing him more thoroughly. When he lifts his head at last - Marcus blinking up at him - he says, “I think I remember something about the best exercise for that being - hip raises.” He winks, and Marcus bursts out laughing.

But Tomas is serious. He skins out of his pants and produces a packet of lubricant. Marcus raises an eyebrow. “The road is right there.”

“You can't even see the rest area from here, and you can't see the rest area from the road,” Tomas argues, straddling Marcus’ hips again. “It's fine.” He reaches back and starts working himself open with slick fingers.

(The real Tomas just about swallows his tongue.)

It isn't long before Tomas urges, “Marcus, get your cock out, I need you inside me.” It’s as much order as plea, and Marcus scrambles to unbutton and unzip and fumble himself clear of his clothes - no small task with Tomas in the way, complete with one hand behind his back. Tomas grasps him with the hand he'd had inside himself, rubbing the remaining lube there, then sinks down with a deep, exultant shout.

“Tomas,” Marcus rasps, “my God, darling, there aren't words for how beautiful you are.” Tomas rides him with gusto as Marcus’ hands roam over his hips and chest, playing with his nipples and fondling his cock.

“Marcus. Marcus, you feel so good,” Tomas pants.

“Are you close?” Marcus starts raising his hips to meet him, driving up into him every time Tomas grinds down. “You gonna come for me, sweetheart?” Tomas nods, with a trace of (absurd, thinks the real Tomas, all things considered) shyness. “Go on then.”

“Ah-ah-ah!” Tomas cries out as Marcus pushes up so hard their skin slaps together. He pins Marcus to the ground as he comes, and Marcus’ cries mingle with his.

He curls up on Marcus afterwards, who strokes him idly, heedless of the mess. The real Tomas takes in the peace on both their faces, bathed in dappled sunlight, and says, “I see.”

Marcus sighs. “No, you don't.”

* * *

The next setting is a bar, the other Tomas waiting for Marcus to get back from somewhere. Tomas feels a sudden surge of recklessness and pockets his stole, then goes up to himself, grabs his arm, and says firmly, “Get lost.”

The figment gives him a very Marcus-like eyebrow raise, but vanishes. Tomas climbs onto his stool, heart pounding. He can't believe that worked.  

Marcus returns with two bottles of beer, frost still clinging to their necks, and a jubilant smile. Tomas smiles back and takes one eagerly.

He doesn't have a clear memory of this night, but he knows they're celebrating a successful exorcism, and that the live band is in fine form, and that Marcus is going to show him what he wishes had happened differently. So when they finish their beers and Marcus tugs him out onto the dance floor, Tomas isn't surprised and doesn't hesitate.

Some of the looks shot at them by certain bar patrons, and Marcus’ predatory smile as he looks back, make Tomas wonder if they're about to get into a fistfight. But it turns out what Marcus really wants is to dance. And can he ever _dance._ Tomas tries his best to keep up, laughing and relieved that Marcus doesn't imagine him a better dancer than he is.

They finish the set hip-to-hip, breathing hard and grinning, and Tomas is the one who kisses him, to wolf whistles and scattered applause.

Marcus returns the kiss at first, then stiffens and pulls away. “You.”

Tomas shrugs. “Got tired of watching.”

“That is _not_ what you're supposed to take away from this!”

“Then what is?”

Marcus looks exhausted suddenly. “Please just go.”

“No, Marcus.”

He glares. “I can _make_ you go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: 
> 
> “Just remember,” Marcus mutters beside him in the pew, “you asked for this.”


	4. Is Gonna Buckle, Knuckle, Kneel On A Carpet Of Lions' Tongues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Why_ are you still _here?”_

“Just remember,” Marcus mutters beside him in the pew, “you asked for this.” He waits until the congregants have nearly finished communion, then gets up and joins the end of the line.

The priest is Tomas - Tomas with his beard of the present, but wearing the green chasuble of his days at St. Anthony's. The church _is_ St. Anthony's, the real Tomas realizes, although when he looks for familiar faces among the congregation his eyes slide away like trying to force two same poles of magnets together. He follows Marcus, somehow certain that Marcus won't let him alter any part of this construction after his behaviour in the last one.

Marcus takes communion on the tongue, then shares a long look with Tomas-the-priest.

“That's not all you need, is it?”

“You tell me,” Marcus says evenly.

Tomas raises his eyebrows. “Strip.” It's soft, but clearly a command.

Marcus barely breaks eye contact as he shrugs out of his clothes, leaving them in a neatly-folded pile on the nearest pew. He stands naked in the church, before the altar, before Tomas, apparently perfectly calm with his hands loose at his sides. His pale, taut skin and brown freckles remind the real Tomas of a speckled wild bird's egg. The air around him seems to glow blue, illuminating the dust motes drifting nearby.

It's dead silent in the church, but for the rustle of Tomas’ vestments as he walks in a circle around Marcus, looking him up and down. Marcus follows him with his eyes, but doesn't turn his head.

“Kneel,” says Tomas, in the same neutral voice. Marcus doesn't crash to comply so much as fold, eloquent in his unconscious grace, resting his hands on his knees.

He still looks completely composed, but the real Tomas knows that's a front, because Marcus at his ease is never composed. So when the fantasy Tomas says, warm and pleased, “Beautiful, Marcus,” and then places a hand on his head in benediction, and _that_ is what makes Marcus drop his gaze and turn bright red, Tomas isn't entirely surprised.

The fantasy Tomas perceives it, too. “Everyone is looking at you, you know. They can see everything, but does that matter to you?”

“No,” Marcus mutters.

“What does matter, Marcus?”

He looks up again, blue eyes burning almost electric in his flushed face. “That _you_ see me.”

“And I do.” He completes another circle, gaze so heavy Tomas is sure Marcus must feel it on his skin like a caress. “Is there anything you wouldn't let me do, like this?”

Marcus shakes his head.

“Are you sure?” Tomas stops in front of Marcus again and lifts the skirt of his alb, just enough to place his foot over Marcus’ cock. Marcus and the real Tomas both gasp audibly.

Tomas nudges Marcus with his polished black shoe. _“Look_ at you,” he purrs to Marcus, who is now quivering finely, the blush traveling all the way down his chest and back. “I can feel you getting hard, Marcus. It excites you, being like this.”

Marcus looks up at him, his mouth hanging slightly open, and nods.

“What else would you let me do? Would you let me take you, right here, before God and everyone?”

 _“Yes,”_ Marcus moans, arching up into Tomas’ foot.

“Did you come here hoping for just that? Did you prepare yourself, thinking of how much you needed to be bared and opened and _used?”_

Marcus squeezes his eyes shut and whines wordlessly.

Tomas leans forward so that he can touch Marcus’ temple. “Your offering is accepted, Marcus.” Marcus shudders and his head falls back. His gasps sound shocked out of him as he orgasms, spurting audibly against the sole of Tomas’ shoe and in his own lap.

When he’s relatively still again, pink and panting and damp and _still_ kneeling where Tomas put him, Tomas sets his foot back on the ground and steps closer, hiking up his vestments and opening his fly to remove his cock, which he slaps lightly against Marcus’ cheek. “I think you’d better get me wet, just for good measure. Keep your hands on your knees.” Marcus mouths dreamily at him, drooling everywhere. When his face is as shining wet as Tomas’ pants are damp, Tomas pulls away and moves to kneel behind him, nudging his knees apart.

Marcus _must_ have been prepared, because Tomas slides into him in a single smooth stroke. A hoarse cry breaks from Marcus’ throat and he falls back against Tomas’ chest. Tomas holds him there with one arm around his torso and one hand bracing his hip, and starts to thrust into him, slow and hard and steady.

When Marcus starts to get hard again in wobbly twitches, faint whimpers rising in the back of his throat, the real Tomas can’t bear it anymore. He moves in front of him and drops to his knees himself, takes Marcus’ face in his hands and kisses him. The whimpering becomes an incredulous grunt, and when Tomas draws back Marcus' eyes are open and wild.

 _“Why_ are you still _here?”_ he groans, emphasizing his words in time with the motions of the other Tomas still moving behind him, inside him.

“Because you are, and I am not leaving without you.”

“You’ve seen all my shame now. You can’t possibly think there’s anything worth saving.”

“I see nothing to be ashamed of.” Shocked by, yes, as was Marcus’ intention, but he should know Tomas is conditioned to overcome shock by now; he saw to that conditioning himself. Intimidated by, yes, but that’s irrelevant right now, and will _stay_ irrelevant if Tomas does not succeed here. He holds Marcus’ eyes. “I see you, Marcus. You love me.”

Marcus’ eyes fill. “Yes,” he whispers. The church, even the other Tomas, is fading into nothingness around them; Marcus doesn’t seem to notice.

“And I love you.”

“Tomas!” At last he moves to embrace Tomas, who gathers him up in his arms.

Marcus is still naked, still wet all over like a newborn animal, still shaking and cracked-open, and Tomas speaks like he’s trying to embed his words at his core, holy relics to build a church around. “I see all of you, and I love you. Your friends - your  _family_ \- we love you. God loves you infinitely and unconditionally for all time. _Marcus."_ His voice breaks. "Come _home_ with me.”

“You keep saying that.” Marcus sounds a little less wrecked, a little less solemn than he has been this whole time, finally, _finally_ a little bit curious. He peels himself far enough off Tomas to look into his face, the wheels of his mind almost visibly beginning to turn. “If you’re here,” he says slowly, “then I’m possessed. The  _thing,_ the one that’s been coming for me - it got me.”

“Not exactly-” Tomas starts to say, but Marcus is still talking.

“You being here also means I did what I needed to do, stopped what God showed me from happening. So I did it. I’m done. You should let me finish it before the whatever-it-is hurts someone.”

“Finish what?”

* * *

“This,” says Marcus.

He’s still naked, but Tomas understands that now it’s not because he was recently starring in an astounding fantasy from which Tomas is still reeling. This Marcus is naked because this is the purest representation of his soul. The human mind can look like a house or a galaxy or a gauntlet to run, but the human soul always looks like the human body. 

And Marcus' soul looks… unstable. His skin is cracking all over like porcelain glaze, and every crack has beams of light piercing through. His eyes, too, are like a pair of spotlights, and his mouth, and the tips of his fingers and toes. He’s also levitating, or maybe just floating in a void, although Tomas is walking on _something_ as he approaches him.

“I’ve never let God in so far before,” he tells Tomas. “I’m very close to being one with Him completely. I think that would be best, don’t you?”

“That’s not - _exactly_ what you did,” Tomas says carefully.

Marcus blinks. “What did I do, then?”

“You kind of, um, ate an angel.”

“What.”

“It’s burning you up. You’re close to being one with God because you’re almost dead. I think.”

He stops floating and stands facing Tomas. The light in his eyes dims, enough for the blue to become visible again. That’s probably a good sign. “I did _what?”_

“It asked us to call it Malachi. It’s been your conduit to God all along, but you sort of - pulled it in and trapped it? During the raid, five days ago. It really wants you to let it go.”

 _“Ask, and it will be given to you,”_ Marcus murmurs. _“Seek and you will find. The nearer you go to God-”_

_The nearer He will come to you_ , finishes Malachi, materializing in the void.

Tomas is worried that Marcus will be terrified, but instead he immediately shouts like a child in delighted recognition. His expression, as Tomas has so recently found out, is the same as when he orgasms. “I saw you,” he breathes, “you’re part of Him.”

You saw my siblings. I was holding back the veil. Hello, Marcus. 

Marcus looks stricken suddenly. “I’m _so_ sorry,” he says, “possession is a terrible thing to do to a person, and that includes - er, backwards?”

I am no more a person than a quaking aspen is a tree, but I accept your apology. 

“Thank you,” Marcus says, then laughs incredulously. Tomas knows the feeling.

I also owe you an apology of my own. 

_“What?_ Whatever for?”

I didn’t understand what you were doing until now. I could have avoided all this by simply speaking to you. 

“Supposed to stay hidden, were you?” Marcus’ tone is one of dawning realization. "Silent partner?" 

Yes. 

“Sevedzhan,” he says abruptly, “1987. When I had to hide overnight in that culvert. By rights I should’ve froze to death, or at least lost a few bits, but I felt warm. Was that you?”

You shouldn’t remember that. You were completely delirious. Now Malachi is the one who sounds incredulous - or, somehow conveys a sense of incredulity in its incorporeal howling.

Marcus grins. “Guess not _completely_. Thanks.”

You’re welcome. Malachi’s ‘tone’ changes.  Marcus. You’ve said it yourself: most of the words in your books are man’s words. It sounds stern, like _an angel of the Lord,_ for the first time.

He shifts. “I know.”

You came to love out of order: first _agape_ , then _philia_ _,_ and now only lately _eros_. Fear none of them, for all are from God. 

Marcus blows out a long breath. “I’ll try.”

I’ll leave you something to remind you, it decides.  When you let me leave, it adds drily.

“Oh! Right! Erm, I’ve no idea how I’m holding you in the first place,” Marcus admits.

“You forced Malachi to possess you when you thought I was about to die,” Tomas reasons aloud, “so…” He opens his shirt, takes Marcus’ hand, and lays it on his chest. “I’m fine, Marcus. I’m here, and safe, and the only thing I need right now is for you to take back control of your body.” He smiles crookedly. “And for you to just shoot the next demons you have to stop in a hurry.”

Yes, please, Malachi chimes in fervently.

Marcus flattens his hand, feeling Tomas’ heart. “It scared me so badly, when I thought I might lose you,” he confesses.

“You didn’t. You won’t, not as easily as that.” Tomas touches his face. “This shouldn’t surprise you by now, but I’m very determined not to let us be parted again.”

“I’m beginning to get that.” Marcus blushes - the cracks in his skin have faded enough that something as subtle as a blush is visible. Definitely a good sign. “Can’t believe some of what I threw at you.”

Neither can Tomas, actually, but. “We can talk about that - later, in the real world. Come with me.” He takes Marcus’ free hand in his own, interlacing their fingers.

“Is this how you rescue all the souls you go in after?” Marcus asks, eyes fixed on Tomas’ and beginning to glint with familiar, beloved humor.

“There’s usually less naked touching,” Tomas says, and kisses him a third time. For the first time, Marcus kisses him back fully, tilting his head and opening his mouth to Tomas, stepping closer to press their bodies together. He starts to lean into Tomas, and then to sag against him.

Tomas braces his feet, taking Marcus' weight, and grips his hand tightly. He knows this part, this shift. Marcus will come with him now. And so, cradling the soul of the man he loves, he goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: 
> 
> Marcus opens his eyes to Tomas’ dear, blotchy, haggard face watching him anxiously. Tomas sees him looking back and bursts into tears.
> 
> * * *
> 
>   1. Botany nerd Marcus definitely got [the quaking aspen reference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_\(tree\)). 
> 



	5. Wish I Could Stand In The Spray Off The Cliff Of Your Sweet Revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I have a stomach ulcer, you know. I’ve named it Marcus.”

Marcus opens his eyes to Tomas’ dear, blotchy, haggard face watching him anxiously. Tomas sees him looking back and bursts into tears.

“Tomas? Is that good crying?” calls Mouse from somewhere out of sight.

“Hey, hey now.” Marcus gingerly pats Tomas where he’s crumpled onto his chest, “I’m here, love.” This makes Tomas cry harder.

 _“Marcus?!”_ Mouse rips back a curtain still half-hanging from a rod half-ripped out of the ceiling.

“Hullo, Mouse. Something's wrong with Tomas.”

“What's _wrong_ with him is nobody's seen your eyes or heard your voice for five days, you great lummox! You had a bloody damn celestial being stuffed under your skin, eating us out of house and home and turning you into a puddle of slime in a hospital bed!” Mouse sniffs and dashes at her eyes with the heel of her hand.

“Tomas told me.” Marcus finally notices the bandages coiled around his forearms, and how dreadfully weak he feels, worse than his last bout of malaria. And he _is_ in a hospital bed. He takes in his surroundings for the first time. “Is this the infirmary of Bennett's compound, then? What happened here? It looks like a bomb went off.”

“That was your houseguest leaving,” says Bennett, striding into the infirmary, “as my charge nurse is threatening to do. I have a stomach ulcer, you know. I’ve named it Marcus.” He presses his lips flat, as he does when he’s experiencing something as offensive as emotion.

Tomas picks that moment to lift his head and kiss Marcus for the first time in reality. His face is wet all over and his breath has been better, and Marcus becomes abruptly aware of the fact that his own mouth tastes chalky and terrible, but it’s still the best kiss he’s ever had. Bennett makes a noise like a whistling teakettle. Marcus laughs, curves his palm around the back of Tomas’ neck, and kisses him harder.

* * *

It's a minor diplomatic negotiation, sorting out where Marcus is to spend the night. Sister Margaret is torn between not wanting to let him out of her sight and being almost too mad to look at him on account of an angel half-destroying her infirmary. Truth be told, she can probably also see Marcus’ forehead-wrinkle and eye-twitch, the ones that say ‘I fucking hate fucking infirmaries and will not sleep in one without sedation’. Tomas almost certainly sees them, and works some magic Marcus is too tired to follow; he just finds himself bundled into a wheelchair and rolling out the door. Tomas pushes him, calling additional reassurances over his shoulder about checking Marcus’ vitals every four hours and bringing him back if he feels the least bit concerned.

“This is so embarrassing,” he grouses as they wheel down the corridors towards their quarters.

“Remember this moment the next time you feel like swallowing an angel whole,” Tomas says crisply. Marcus grumbles wordless dismay as he pictures how many future arguments he’s going to lose over this.

He tries again to transfer by himself in their room, as if failing to get off the hospital bed had been a fluke. He can't even get all the way to standing without a boost from Tomas. Appalled, he lets Tomas hold onto him as they shuffle until he can sit heavily on the mattress. He manages to lift his own legs into the bed, but the effort makes him see stars.

“This is the worst,” he tells Tomas.

“Sister Margaret says you don't have severe muscle wasting, more just no reserves left at all. Like a marathoner at the finish line. A big meal and a good sleep should put you much closer to normal.” Marcus’ stomach thunders at the mention of food; Tomas looks at him hopefully.

“I would kill for a Cuban sandwich. Like they had all over in Miami?”

He beams. “One _mixto,_ coming up. Don't go anywhere.”

“Like I could,” he calls at Tomas’ disappearing back. He drums his fingers on his knees in the sudden silence Tomas leaves behind, looking around the room.

Five days, something else had been living in his body. Four nights it had slept in this bed beside Tomas (and one in the infirmary), where Marcus has yet to sleep. Even knowing now that it was _not_ a demon, was the literal _opposite_ of a demon, and a perfectly decent entity at that, it still gives Marcus gooseflesh.

Tomas returns just as Marcus is beginning to get truly antsy. He's carrying a tray with four sandwiches on it - or, well, ‘sandwiches’.

“Unless Malachi left me with the ability to unhinge my jaw like a python, there's no way I'm going to be able to bite into one of those,” Marcus points out, staring at the wobbling cubes of meat and cheese and pickles only nominally contained by bread.

Tomas ducks his head. “Sorry, I got carried away.” He thins about half the fillings out of one sandwich and gives it to Marcus, spreading a napkin in his lap.

Even with the wrong bread and no roast pork, it's a respectable try at a Cuban sandwich and somehow one of the best things Marcus has ever tasted in his life. He's flirted with starvation before, but this seems to have turned into a torrid affair behind his back. He eats half of one more before he can't take another bite, and Tomas hands him a water bottle full of an alarming greenish-yellow substance.

“What's this?”  

“Gatorade. There's a can of powder in the kitchen for some reason.”

“It looks like highlighter ink.”

“It's water, electrolytes, and more calories, so drink up.”

After the heavenly sandwiches it kind of _tastes_ like highlighter ink, but Marcus looks at Tomas’ red-rimmed eyes and grimly chugs as much as he thinks he can keep down. He smacks his lips in disgust after, baring his tongue like he can air the taste out.

Tomas chuckles. “Your tongue is lemon-lime colored.”

There's a dirty joke to be made in there somewhere, but Marcus is too tired to bother. “Scrubbing it off is a problem for future Marcus.” He pats the bed invitingly. “And lugging him to the loo is a problem for future Tomas. Come lie down; you're the one who did all the work today.”

“I'm not that tired,” Tomas protests, but he's already helping Marcus shuffle down the bed until he can lie flat, and then slipping off his shoes and climbing in beside him. “It's more the ugliness of the demons that wears me out, and there was none of that this time.”

“What I showed you was plenty damn ugly,” Marcus mutters.

“It wasn't, though. Seeing your past was painful, but it helped me understand. You're always helping me.” He molds himself to Marcus' side, working an arm around his waist. “And the other was just beautiful.”

“You can't mean that.”

“Sure I can.” Tomas pauses. “Now, I hate to bear bad news-”

“Be the bearer of bad news-” Marcus corrects numbly.

“-but I don't actually know how to do - um, many of the things you imagined us doing.”

Marcus bursts into spluttering laughter. “My queer little heart would probably explode if you did!”

“Also, my dick is _not_ that big. Sorry.”

Marcus can’t laugh any harder and just wheezes, eyes streaming, on the edge of exhausted hysteria.

When he calms down a little, Tomas continues, “But I would like to learn. To try. To - be that for you, with you.”

The rest of Marcus' levity dies in a hurry. “You have vows.” That was half of why he felt so bad about desiring Tomas in the first place.

Tomas snorts and snuggles closer to him. “In a conflict between my vows to the Church, and the words of a literal angel of God heard with my own ears, I'm sorry but the Church is not going to come out on top.”

Marcus would like to argue about this more, but his body is overruling him. Lying in bed, with a full belly and Tomas warm against his side, he's drifting out to sleep like a log on the tide.

Tomas points out, in a murmur as drowsy as Marcus feels, “I also swore, with equal weight, to obey Auxiliary Bishop Egan, and I snapped that vow over my knee and left it smoldering in a dumpster back in Chicago.”

Marcus is still sniggering over that when he finally passes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: 
> 
> The journey to the loo, the one that was future Marcus’ problem, becomes present Marcus’ problem when Tomas’ phone wakes them up after four hours for a vitals check.


	6. An Ocean Of Naked, Serrated Marble Crashing In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's ridiculous. It's excessive... Marcus kind of loves it.

The journey to the loo, the one that was future Marcus’ problem, becomes present Marcus’ problem when Tomas’ phone wakes them up after four hours for a vitals check.

“Pulse down, pressure up; you're already less shocky than when Sister Margaret let you go. Want to try walking there?”

“God, yes.” It’s a slow and wobbly trip, Tomas half-carrying him with Marcus’ arm slung over his subtly massive shoulders (Tomas is one of those very fit men who somehow manage to look merely healthy when covered up), but Marcus counts it as a win.

Once he's relieved himself and washed his hands, he impulsively splashes some water on his face. After he does that, he suddenly can't bear not to brush his teeth. Having a clean mouth makes him aware of how dirty his body feels, tacky with sick-sweat, and he desperately wants a shower.

“I think that would be okay,” Tomas answers when he asks. “There are benches in every stall. Don't turn the water on yet; I want to grab you some clean clothes, and bandages for your wrist. And a towel.”  

Marcus stays put on the bench. He has his eyes on the prize of a shower, and is not going to miss out on it by being found sprawled face-down on communal bathroom tile, no matter how obsessively clean. However, he can still start getting undressed.

He’s just working his shirt over his head when he hears the door open. “I'm back,” Tomas says.

“Good, you can help me with my trousers.” Marcus bends to put his shirt outside the stall, and Tomas gasps and drops his armful of towels and clothes and bandages with a _flump_.

“What is it?”

“Marcus, your back!”

“What about it?” Marcus twists his head and can just see - something. “What’s that?”

Tomas helps him stand with his back to the mirror, and now it's Marcus’ turn to gasp.

“Oh, you celestial bastard,” he breathes.

At first glance it looks like a tattoo - an absolutely massive tattoo of a pair of wings. It takes up his entire back, and the edges trail all the way past his arse to finally, as it turns out, end halfway down the backs of his thighs. As Marcus stands there with his trousers and pants around his ankles, craning his neck to peer at himself in the mirror, it becomes blatantly obvious that the lines are not made of ink. They're as dark as the void of space, except for the _constantly moving stars._

“Malachi's eyes looked exactly like that when it was in you.”

“Mouse showed me a video.”

It's ridiculous. It's excessive. It's going to make going shirtless - or even just stripping down to a vest - in public nearly impossible. Marcus kind of loves it. “This is one hell of a parting gift.”

“I don't think it's a _parting_ gift,” Tomas muses. “Malachi said it was to remind you. I think this says that God is with you always.” His hands bracing Marcus’ shoulders shift to brush the edges of the wings with his fingertips, his face a complicated mix of wonder and - envy?

“Are you _jealous?”_

“A little,” Tomas admits, “it's _extremely_ cool. And - I can't put a mark on you like that.”

Marcus turns his head and stares. “Tomas,” he says slowly, “I've got your footprints all over my memories and your handprints on my soul. How much more of a mark could you possibly make?”

Tomas nips at his jaw and murmurs in his ear, “I want to mark up your body too, get all three. But those marks will fade.”

Marcus shivers. “Guess you'll have to keep making them then.”

Tomas groans and pulls him close, kissing him deeply - far too deeply for Marcus to follow through on in the open with his pants around his ankles and still reeking of sickbed.

“Tomas,” he interjects as Tomas starts to nibble and suck down his neck, “Tomas, I can't stay standing much longer.”

Tomas pulls back, chagrined. “Oh! _Lo siento._ Come, sit, let's get you clean.” He helps Marcus back into the shower stall. The noise Marcus makes when the blessed (possibly literally, given the number of exorcists under Bennett’s roof) hot water hits him at last turns Tomas’ face red. Marcus beams. This is going to be _fun._

He scrubs the important bits himself, but when he looks with wary calculation down at his feet, Tomas says, “Let me,” and squats, washcloth already lathered up. He rubs Marcus’ feet too firmly for it to tickle at all.

“In your- fantasies,” he begins hesitantly.

Marcus winces. “Can we not?”

But Tomas is, as usual, unstoppable. “You imagined yourself taking care of me, a lot. But you also imagined me taking care of you.”

 _“That's_ what you got from - that?” He can't actually _say_ ‘you defiling yourself with me during a church service’; he only ever even let himself _think_ about it when he was desperate to come so he could sleep, and missing Tomas so much he was sick with it.

“One of the things, yes.” Tomas washes higher, up Marcus’ calves and knees.

“Why do I get the feeling I've been hoisted on my own petard? I tried to scare you off and all I managed was handing over all my secrets.”

Tomas looks up at him through his lashes. “I promise to use my knowledge for good purposes.” He scrubs the washcloth over Marcus’ thighs, outer and inner, and then, gently and neither lingering nor hurrying, right over his already-clean genitals and on to his belly. He shuffles on his knees between Marcus’ fallen-open legs and murmurs, “Such as making you fall apart for me.”

 _“Fuck.”_ Tomas adds more soap and keeps cleaning him, broad, slow strokes with the nubbly terrycloth all over his torso. It's somehow both chaste and erotic at once, approaching his body like it's all of a piece, and Marcus _does_ feel like he's falling apart in short order.

“You'll have to tell me what you like,” says Tomas, “I've never been with a man before, and only one woman.”

“I barely know,” Marcus admits. “I've not been touched like that by anyone since before you were born.”

Tomas works up around his left shoulder and down his arm, skirting carefully around the healing skin tear on his wrist. “Tell me?”

“Not much to tell. Bit of unwelcome groping early on; bit of welcome groping later on, trading handies and blowjobs, that sort of thing - why'd you stop?” Tomas has frozen.

“‘Early on’. How early?” There's a forced mildness to his voice, a priestly trick Marcus never quite got the hang of, opting instead for convivial misdirection when he needs to put someone at ease.  

“Before I made clear it was safer to stick it in a bear trap - with a live bear in,” Marcus says crossly. “Can we go back to the soapy-massage thing you were doing? I liked that better than talking about this.”

Tomas frowns. “How did this not make it onto your list of bad memories?”

“Because I don't feel bad about it. It wasn't my fault, and I was never more than annoyed.” Not entirely true; he bit and clawed and thrashed with savage strength, more eel than boy, seething with so much rage his vision had literally gone red - but it didn't take much to get him into that state back then. Stealing his food would do it too. “Maybe a little extra smug the first time a friend and I stuck our hands down each other's pants, because it was one in the eye for the bastards.” He holds out his right arm imperiously. “Come on, one bit left.”

Tomas looks at him, and he looks so terribly sad. Marcus sighs and touches his face. “It was a long time ago, love, and it was far from the worst thing about that time. I've made my peace with it.” He pauses. “Honestly, I think sticking to my vows all those years hurt more. I don't think God meant for us to go so long without.”

Tomas covers Marcus' hand on his cheek and shuts his eyes, probably praying. When he opens them again, the hint of red makes the green look very bright. “You'll also tell me if there's something you _don't_ like, okay? I never want to hurt you.”

Marcus sincerely doubts Tomas is even capable of the kind of unfeeling cruelty it would take to trouble him, but he holds his gaze and nods. Tomas kisses his hand and starts to wash his right arm, still too solemn but at least he's moving again.

“There was probably a better place to unpack all this than the shower,” Marcus jokes. He feels sparkling-clean now, but also verging on pruny. Tomas is soaked.

Tomas blinks. “That reminds me: I'd like to wash your hair.” The way he says it - telling, not asking - gives Marcus hope that they can still have some fun, and the way he drops his voice and urges, “Let me take care of you like that, _cariño,”_ is even more heartening.

Pruny skin is a small price to pay. Marcus clears his throat. “Alright.”

Agreeing to this was both a good and bad idea, he decides two minutes later. Good, _so_ good, because Tomas’ fingertips are blunt and firm, and he never knew his scalp was so sensitive or maybe this is just part and parcel of going untouched for decades. Either way it's even more sensual than being rubbed all over with the washcloth, languorous pleasure rippling down his neck and over his body in waves. Bad, because his cock has finally woken up to the presence of a new and friendly pair of hands on his body.

“Something’s come up,” he mutters.

“I see that,” Tomas says warmly. “Tip your head back and close your eyes.” The gentle order sends a frisson of excitement through him, and his cock firms up more as Tomas rinses his hair. He groans as Tomas turns the spray away and starts massaging his scalp all over again with conditioner.

“What do you want to do about that, Marcus?”

“Um.”

“Do you think you’ll be strong enough to walk back to our room after, if we take care of it in here?”

“Good question.” Marcus’ head feels heavy on his neck as it is, like most of what’s holding him up at this point is flowing from Tomas’ hands. “If I’m not, I don’t think I’ll have it in me to mind.”

Tomas draws long lines over his head, dragging down to his temples and back up, the movement of his fingers slower and softer now, a kind of innuendo in the lingering strokes. He rinses him off again, then steps out from his perch wedged half-behind where Marcus is sitting half-turned on the little shower bench, nudging Marcus back to sit more securely. His hands move down to Marcus’ neck and he kisses him with that same slow surety.

Marcus moans as his general state of pleasure heats up into something more intense: arousal, desire, _need._ Tomas has worked him over so thoroughly and now his blood is singing under every inch of his skin, every part of him attuned to Tomas like a flower to the sun.

He shifts restlessly, and Tomas makes a nonsensical shushing noise and rubs his hands up and down his sides, his chest. It’s soothing until it’s not, Tomas’ palms catching his nipples. Marcus shudders and tries to lift his hips, but at some point he started clinging to Tomas’ shoulders and the leverage isn't great with his arms still so weak.

“Tomas,” he gasps against Tomas’ lips, “please, touch me.”

“I _am_ touching you,” Tomas teases, but he curls his hand around Marcus’ cock and muffles Marcus’ choked cry with his mouth. He jerks him like he means business, like - well, like they're in a semi-public place and Marcus is in no shape for anything prolonged or elaborate. Marcus is panting, pulsing all over, and desperately hard in no time at all.  

“Look at me, Marcus.” The green of Tomas’ eyes is just a thin line around his blown pupils, but it's brilliant, luminous, as alive as a forest in summer. _“Stay_ with me,” he commands, and some tension Marcus had barely been aware of gives way.

 _“Yes,”_ he gasps, hips bucking as he spills into Tomas’ hand, eyes open, drowning in Tomas’ gaze until Tomas closes the gap to kiss him again, muffling Marcus’ grunts and whimpers as he gentles him through the aftershocks.

Marcus has to stifle his yelp of surprise on his own when Tomas drops down and starts licking him clean with big, messy slurps. He pops up, blushing adorably as he sucks his fingers like he's catching the last drips of something delicious.

“I wanted to see your face this time,” he tells a shocked Marcus, “but I - uh, I really love using my mouth a _lot.”_

Marcus’ smile is slow and delighted. The time of imagining what Tomas would be like as a lover is over. Now he gets to know him for _real;_ he gets to be _surprised._ He can't wait.

As it turns out, after being dried and dressed and bandaged, he _is_ able to walk back to their room. Both his feet are on the ground, if not his weight; it definitely doesn't count as needing to be carried.

“I carried Malachi.”

“Tougher’n an angel! Yes!” Marcus slurs as he falls back into bed, pumping his fist vaguely in the air.

“Sister Margaret is going to murder me if you relapse because I had sex with you,” Tomas frets.

“S’all in the interest of keeping me tethered to this mortal coil, or summat,” he yawns, and sinks beneath the waves again.

* * *

The next time he surfaces - to another vitals check, specifically the squeeze of the damn blood pressure cuff - there's more food waiting for him. He takes the tray, then sidles over to make room in the bed and winks at Tomas. “Sit with me, make sure I eat enough.”

Tomas looks at him suspiciously. “Are you going to seduce me with your face and then faint again?”

Marcus is offended. “I did not _faint!_ It doesn't count as fainting if you're already lying down.”

“Who told you that? The man who went around buying up orphans in bulk?”

“Christ! I was _going_ to suggest that I have a go at _you,_ but I guess it can bloody well wait!” Marcus crams an entire boiled egg in his mouth and struggles to keep scowling; it's cooked the _exact_ amount that he likes best.

After a minute Tomas sits down perpendicular to him, looking straight ahead at the wall. “I'm sorry,” he says, “I am maybe not finished being scared for you. I understand better now, why you got so angry when I first started engaging with my visions.”

Marcus swallows his egg and points out, “I'm no one's role model for emotionally-healthy behaviour.”

Tomas shoots him a warm look. “You do alright.” His face twitches. “Most of the time.”

Marcus sucks doggedly on a box of apple juice, trying hard not to feel like a schoolboy. _Here we go._

“I thought I couldn't feel more alone than when you were gone, but having you here and not-here at the same time was even worse. And then you were _dying.”_ Tomas rubs wearily at his face.

Marcus finishes off the juice, and sets the box - and tray - aside. “Come here.” Tomas curls in beside him, and Marcus takes him in his arms. It mirrors the solace Tomas had offered him, a seemingly-permanent addendum to the memories of some of the worst moments of Marcus’ life. He can’t think back to those times anymore and not see Tomas there, hear his words, feel his touch. He wonders how it will change him, being rewritten like this.

He doesn't have Tomas’ transcendent grace, but he'll do what he can. “I’ll not make that particular mistake again, and I’ve no intention of leaving you at all. Not by choice.”

“Not by choice,” Tomas echoes unhappily. They don’t need to list all the ways they could be separated. Marcus will count it as a miracle if he lives long enough for his being two entire decades older to even become an issue.

“And I have faith - I have _faith,_ Tomas - that if we are parted, it’ll be like you said: not forever. Just for now.” He squeezes his shoulder and smiles. “And… _not_ today.”

“Not today,” Tomas echoes again, sounding a bit more cheerful. He squeezes Marcus back, and finally lifts his head and looks at him. His smile is always so beautiful; Marcus can almost hear music every time he sees it. He usually has to restrain the urge to kiss him as well, but this time he realizes with great joy that he doesn’t have to restrain it anymore. He covers Tomas’ mouth with his, just a soft peck that becomes sucking his bottom lip that becomes Tomas surging against him with a deep groan and licking into Marcus’ mouth. Marcus grins and opens for him; it seems he wasn’t the only one restraining himself in the past.

Tomas’ kisses become more fervent, his movement in Marcus’ arms more urgent, until he breaks away to rest his head against Marcus’ forehead, breathing rapidly. “I shouldn’t,” he says, “you’re not recovered.”

Marcus raises an eyebrow. “I’m recovered enough for a beautiful young man to sit in my lap and let me treat him right. With my hands,” he modifies, when Tomas still looks unconvinced. “For now,” he adds mutinously. He’ll do whatever recovery regime Sister Margaret assigns if his incentive is being strong enough to lie with Tomas however they want.

With enough pillows piled behind Marcus to make an entire extra bed, Tomas is finally willing to strip down and straddle his thighs. The sight of him naked, blushing but not trying to hide, renders Marcus dry-mouthed and dizzy; maybe treating him like a convalescent this first time is a wise idea after all.

“You’ve seen me naked before,” Tomas points out, and blushes darker still.

“Not like this. Not on purpose, for me.” Tomas has to duck his head at that, and Marcus’ affection feels too big for his chest. “Do you like that? Hearing how much I like you showing off for me?” Tomas’ cock twitches, and he jerks his head in a tiny nod. “Oh, love,” Marcus croons, and wraps his hand around Tomas’ hardon, “you are magnificent.”

He _feels_ magnificent, hot and firm under the delicate foreskin, swelling more as Tomas gasps at the touch. Marcus steadies him with his other hand on Tomas’ hip. “Put your hands on my shoulders, there you go. _Good,”_ and if he leans on the ‘good’ a little hard, well, Tomas seems to appreciate it, rolling his hips and leaning harder on Marcus, starting to forget himself at last.

Marcus jacks him steadily and says, “You’re such a good boy for me, always giving me what I need.” He’d have thought he’d feel silly saying these things, or like he’d have to nerve himself up, but with Tomas shaking and keening in response the words flow as naturally as prayer. It’s what _Tomas_ needs, so he gives it, simple as that.

“You even came and found me when I’d got lost in my own head, and left your love lying in heaps all over the place.” Tomas looks back up into his eyes at that, and Marcus goes on, “I can still feel it, Tomas. You love me _so much.”_

 _“Sí,”_ Tomas pants, _“sí, y tú me amas,_ Marcus.” He kisses him hard, rutting into Marcus’ hand, body moving so fast now. _“Me mostraste.”_

 _“Yo si,”_ Marcus agrees. “I did show you. Now come for me, love, show me that.”

“Marcus!” Tomas’ hips snap forward, his back bowing, eyes shut and mouth open. He looks like a saint having a beatific vision; he _is_ a beatific vision, a living expression of God’s love. Marcus would know.

“You know,” he tells Tomas, after dimming the lights, after pulling him down to lie under the covers together, “I wanted to argue with Malachi.”

Tomas mutters into the general vicinity of his armpit, _“Marcus Keane_ backed down from an argument with someone?”

With great dignity, Marcus ignores that and continues. “I didn’t want to be ungracious - _more_ ungracious - to a creature I’d already imprisoned, accident or no. Nor ungrateful to you when you’d had to come in after me.”

“Your body was also running out of time. Let’s not forget that.”

Marcus tugs lightly on his hair. “I didn’t think that I’d ever feared love. I was chasing God’s love like an addict hooked after the first hit, and. And sometimes spilling love to so many people I felt like a bag of water that’d been poked with a skewer a few too many times.”

 _“Agape,”_ Tomas murmurs. “Malachi said you learned love out of order, the one that’s usually hardest first.”

“I don’t know about _that,”_ Marcus says uncomfortably. “My point is, if I’d been able to sense the depth of this feeling without being in it, without also knowing its - its brightness, maybe I would have been afraid. Maybe I would have run. And maybe I did.”

“Do you feel like running now?” Tomas winds his arms and legs around him a little tighter, ready to fight with all his enormous hidden strength to keep him right where he is.

“No.” He holds Tomas close, and lets himself fall into the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   1. The title, and chapter titles, are because this fic is what happened after I listened to [Last Lion of Albion by Neko Case](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT_ObjcZYbs) a hojillion times while sitting deep in my Marcus feels. 
>   2. Thanks to [cinelitchick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinelitchick/pseuds/cinelitchick) for suggesting Malachi's 'name'. 
>   3. Thanks to [Arae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arae/pseuds/Arae) for suggesting cock-stepping. 
> 



End file.
